A handwritten sign advertised a moonshine cocktail special, but I ordered a can of Old Style, the cheapest thing on the menu except ice water. I had a few unexpected bills in my pocket from Quin’s spending spree at the pub the night before, but I couldn’t drink it away. As I laid out the cash, a guy sitting at the far corner of the bar took a long,appraising look at my tattoos. I tugged up my sweater sleeves so he could get a better look, thinking he might be good for a round.
Hey, a girl on a budget has to do what she’s got to do.
But I wasn’t in the mood for any getting-to-know-you. I scoped out the room, looking for someone with a table I knew well enough to pull up a chair. And then I saw him—
Bern.
He’d already spotted me, and was waving me over, even though the tiny table was already crowded with drinks and elbows. I didn’t personally know any of the people sitting with him, but when Bern gestured, one of them hopped up and found an extra chair, and they all nudged over to make room so I could sit next to him.
“What a delightful happenstance to run into you here,” Bern said. He had a lowball glass in front of him with something brown and bourbon-ish in it.
“Out shopping for some pickers and/or grinners?” I asked.
“Just seeing what’s on special around town, as always,” he said. “Some good chatter, place like this. Might hear about some up-and-comers. Plus, I’m supposed to be learning about country music, isn’t that what I promised you?”
“Not this,” I said, looking toward the trio onstage. They were adept musicians, but they weren’t commanding the audience. Even people down front were talking over them like it was the radio playing. They’d been reduced to white noise. I turned back to Bern. “I mean—I don’t want to slag off other acts, but…”
“No, probably not this,” Bern said, smiling down at his glass. “How’s the set for your Christmas show coming along?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Oh,no,” I moaned.
“That well?” he said.
I’d completely forgotten about the emergency songwriting session today. Oh, this was going to cost me.
“I forgot… an appointment,” I said. He’d dinged me about my timekeeping the night we met. “It’s fine.”
“Hopefully all will be forgiven,” Bern said. He gestured to my beer can. “You good with your swill?”
“All good,” I said. I felt a little out of sorts, a little dull, staying on this side of the stage persona. He’d said he wanted to see me without affectation, right?
How about… without eye makeup or hope?
Up onstage, the trio was bringing “Turkey in the Straw” to a long and tortured end with a raucous banjo/mandolin fight to the death. It all seemed a little more performative than it needed to be—a littlemuch.
I leaned closer to Bern. “I don’t suppose these hat-act guys know who you are?”
“I expect so,” he said, swirling his drink. “Occupational hazard, being fed the whole hog wherever I go.”
The band finally took a well-earned break to applause that felt obligatory. Overhead, piped-in music filled in, but at a much lower decibel.
“This is my round,” one of Bern’s tablemates offered, rising to take orders. When she turned to me, I shook my head. I couldn’t afford to stand the next one.
Bern threw out a credit card. “Start a tab. Dahlia, please upgrade. It pains me to see adults drinking cheap beer.”
I ordered a gin and tonic, and Bern introduced me around. They were all local music people, it turned out: Americana, country, in bands, friends of band-folk, a couple of sound techs, a guy who made bespoke Western wear out of Indianapolis. The woman in the Nathan Graham T-shirt I’d seen earlier leaned across the table at me. “Doll, right? Charmaine. Did I meet you at Fitzgerald’s once? Or Carol’s?”
Probably it had been McPhee’s, but I didn’t want to say that name at the moment. “You sing, too, right?”
“Country,” Charmaine said. She lifted her chin as though waiting for me to argue with her. “I’m not supposed to like it, ’cause I’m Black, you know?”
“Is anyone in Chicago supposed to like it?”
She smiled. “We’re all just the same kind of wrong, then.”
Same kind of wrong. Hmm, not bad. “Not like the Grand Ole Opry would exist if not for Chicago getting there first.”
“Or any of it would exist without my enslaved ancestors stringing gourd instruments.”
